page_title: Muhammad Ali of Egypt
section_title: Greek rebellion
hierarchical_section_title: Muhammad Ali of Egypt / Military campaigns / Greek rebellion
caption_attribution_description: Ibrahim Pachá con su padre Mehmet Ali y el coronel Sève
context_page_description: Muhammad Ali Pasha al-Mas'ud ibn Agha, known as Muhammad Ali of Egypt and the Sudan, was the Albanian Ottoman governor and the de facto ruler of Egypt from 1805 to 1848. At the height of his rule, he controlled Lower Egypt, Upper Egypt, Sudan and parts of Arabia and the entire Levant. Though not a modern nationalist, he is regarded as the founder of modern Egypt.
  Muhammad Ali was born in Kavala, Ottoman Macedonia, to a family of Albanian origins. He was a military commander in an Albanian Ottoman force sent to recover Egypt from a French occupation under Napoleon. Following Napoleon's withdrawal, Muhammad Ali rose to power through a series of political maneuvers, and in 1805 he was named Wāli of Egypt and gained the rank of Pasha.
  As Wāli, Muhammad Ali attempted to modernize Egypt by instituting dramatic reforms in the military, economic and cultural spheres. He also initiated a violent purge of the Mamluks, consolidating his rule and permanently ending the Mamluk hold over Egypt.
  Militarily, Muhammad Ali recaptured the Arabian territories for the sultan, and conquered Sudan on his own accord.
context_section_description: While Muhammad Ali was expanding his authority into Africa, the Ottoman Empire was being challenged by ethnic rebellions in its European territories. The rebellion in the Greek provinces of the Ottoman Empire began in 1821. The Ottoman army proved ineffectual in its attempts to put down the revolt as ethnic violence spread as far as Constantinople. With his own army proving ineffective, Sultan Mahmud II offered Muhammad Ali the island of Crete in exchange for his support in putting down the revolt.
  Muhammad Ali sent 16,000 soldiers, 100 transports, and 63 escort vessels under command of his son, Ibrahim Pasha. Britain, France, and Russia intervened to protect the Greeks. On 20 October 1827 at the Battle of Navarino, while under the command of Muharram Bey, the Ottoman representative, the entire Egyptian navy was sunk by the European Allied fleet, under the command of Admiral Edward Codrington. If the Porte was not in the least prepared for this confrontation, Muhammad Ali was even less prepared for the loss of his highly competent, expensively assembled and maintained navy. With its fleet essentially destroyed, Egypt had no way to support its forces in Greece and was forced to withdraw. Ultimately the campaign cost Muhammad Ali his navy and yielded no tangible gains.
caption: Muhammad Ali Pasha with his son, Ibrahim, and Colonel Joseph Sève (later Suleiman Pasha).
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